Curious Quiver
by Bainaku
Summary: Minako has a terrible day.  Rei, ever the vigilant rescuer, ensures her friend a much better night.  Sequel to Bookshelf.  Part II added 12/03.  Please r/r!
1. Chapter 1

**Warning: **Rei/Minako. Implications. Also, beware minor amounts of cursing.

**Commentary: **Hello all! Surprise! Here's another Inner-centric work from me. Expect two parts and an epilogue all told.

This is a _sequel_ to **Bookshelf**. If you haven't read that, some things you see here might confuse you. While I'm not asking you to go read **Bookshelf**, or saying it exists as this story's foundation, I will be the first to tell you that giving it a look will shed some serious light on what's happening here.

As always, I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it.

* * *

_**CURIOUS QUIVER**_

**PART I**

Evening at the Hikawa Shrine, just past six o'clock. In the courtyard the crows scratched expectantly at the freshly-swept earth. Soon the shrine's miko would deliver them their daily dinner of a few handfuls of seed and breadcrumbs. For now, though, they were still hungry, and they coughed their reproach into the steel-blue quiet of the fading twilight.

Within the shrine proper, Rei noted their grumblings and smiled. "Almost finished, you pigs," she muttered. She flexed her fingers over the broom handle and swept its bristles sidelong into the flue above the sacred fire, banked now to stacked smoldering embers. She sang under her breath, "Patience, patience."

The intensity of the crow-cries outside increased as though in answer—cut off abruptly next, lending the shrine's campus an uneasy quiet. Frowning, Rei tightened her grip on the broom and cocked her head. When the bird-chitter failed to resume, she stepped briskly to the door, slid it open, and hurried onto the porch. While rare in the city, foxes sometimes paid Hikawa curious visits and took snaps at the resident birds too. Had one chosen to attempt a meal again at her crows' expense, Rei intended to frighten it off.

It wasn't a fox in the courtyard.

It was Minako, backpack dangling in the crook of an elbow. Her face was a ruin of red blotches and wetness. Above her right temple, her hair spiked into discolored cowlicks. Her jaw looked swollen even at a distance.

She was crying.

Rei dropped the broom—took a stunned step forward.

"Hey," Minako offered, watery. She shivered, dropped the backpack. Bits of bright things fell from her hair. Rei squinted.

They were pieces of glass.

"It's not Thursday yet," Minako said. "I know. I'm _ridiculously _early. But I was wondering if I could stay here a while. You know, not long. Maybe forever. Maybe—"

She stopped. She turned her face skyward, squeezed her eyes shut. A few more glittery shards pattered down across the courtyard and Minako bit her lips, staggered, swayed. Rei leapt over the broom and down the three steps to the bottom of the porch.

She threw her arms open. She caught Minako as she fell.

"I'm sorry," the blonde offered into Rei's billowy sleeve. It was a whisper and they went down together, Rei's angle too awkward to keep Minako aloft. The miko's knees hit the courtyard, sending up small puffs of dust. The other soldier landed crossways in her lap. The crows watching the two girls' progress from the surrounding trees contributed startled caws, and Minako insisted over and over, thrusting herself into Rei as much as she was able, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm _sorry_—" Her arms went around the shrinekeeper's waist and clenched there, tight enough to burn.

"Minako-chan, what—?" Rei wheezed. Prying one hand free, she ran it disbelievingly over her friend's skull. Fragments and liquid prickled under her palm. She lifted it away: looked at it, expecting to see glass and blood. She did find the former. The liquid, however, was too dark, too viscous. There were lumps in it—

"She hit me with a gravy boat," Minako seethed. Her voice cracked and she barked out hoarse, disbelieving laughter. "Her favorite _fucking _crystal gravy boat—"

Minako shook her head suddenly, wrenched herself away from the miko. Glass splinters bit into Rei's palm; globs of apparent gravy slid down the front of her ceremonial vestments. "Minako-chan," she attempted. She reached out again. Her friend hunkered away from her touch as though afraid it would scald.

"God," interrupted the blonde, "I'm so sorry, I… coming here like this, I didn't mean—" She reached up and dug her nails into her own cheeks: drew them down the tear-smeared curves. They left behind stark white lines. She giggled wetly, miserably—nigh maniacally.

Rei's hackles rose. Her chest clenched, all simmering anger. "Hey, no," she soothed her friend. Slipping upright, she cupped her hands over Minako's shoulders. "Come on, Minako-chan." She slid her fingers lower, folded them beneath Minako's arms, pulled. "Come on," she repeated, "let's go inside. Let's fix it."

The blonde wobbled to her feet, half-laughing and half-crying. "Fix it?" she echoed. "_Fix _it? How can anyone _fix _it?" The question went white, high, shrill. It scared off the crows. As the flock of birds took exasperated wing, Rei captured the other soldier's hands and squeezed them. Minako's knuckles popped.

"Minako-chan," she said quietly.

The other soldier's fingers stiffened—flexed. Relaxed again. Her shoulders drooping, Minako inhaled, nodded. She replied even as fresh wet flooded down her face, "Right. Rei-chan, I'm sorry, I am, I really am—"

"Stop apologizing," Rei threatened. "Just _stop _and come inside like I said, Minako-chan. I'll drag you. I honestly will. It's a promise." She tightened her grip a little more—softened the touch even so with an amended, "Please." She gave Minako an experimental tug. Shamefaced, Minako followed it.

They went together down the line of the porch to Rei's bedroom, into the chamber: they stepped silently past the low table whereupon they had both spent countless afternoons daydreaming, pseudo-studying, snatching naps. Rei took Minako to the bathroom. She pulled her inside. In the fluorescent glow of the sinklight, Minako's hair gleamed sea-green and the shards in it stood up too, the spires of an unwilling crown.

Releasing the other girl's hands, Rei knelt and rifled through the cabinet beneath the washbasin. She found a first-aid kit—she tucked it under an arm. Delving into the drawer's depths a second time yielded the cord of the hairdryer snagged around her fingers. Shaking them free, she told the blonde, "The towel on that bar's clean." She rolled her shoulder to show which one she meant. "Rinse off, but don't wash your hair yet," she instructed. "Come to me when you're finished—all right?"

Minako nodded. As Rei stood, Minako plucked at the hem of her shirt, pulled at it, and after several unsuccessful attempts on the blonde's part, the miko helped her peel it up and off. The fabric was cold against her flesh, covered in dark streaks and bits of telling sharpness. She and Minako, garbed now in just jeans and a bra, stared at the gravy-splotched blouse.

"You can burn it if you want," said the latter. She tried on a smile. It hung crookedly on her oft-grinning mouth, faded again. Rubbing the heel of her hand over her cheek, she whispered, "I guess I'm serious."

Folding the shirt, Rei returned gently, "Leave the rest in the sink, Minako-chan. I'll be just outside." With that said, she left the bathroom and closed the door behind her.

She ventured back outdoors and did throw the shirt into the small fire beneath the boiler. She retrieved her broom and Minako's backpack from the courtyard: she locked the shrine's gates. Lips pressed into a tight, severe line, she padded down the porch to her bedroom, stuck her head inside, listened. She could hear the shower running.

She stripped out of her robes, noting the sunset in the wink of the window, and replaced them with pajamas. She took a seat on her bed. She lifted Minako's backpack—hesitated only the briefest moment before opening it. She found within a hairbrush, three pairs of panties, a notebook covered in doodled hearts, a red sock with a hole in the toe, a mostly crushed packet of chocolate-glazed rice crackers, and an explicit _manga_.

Rei flicked curiously through the last despite the circumstances. She wondered several times during the perusal, quite skeptically, if such anatomical structures really _could _be that large.

Five minutes later the shower cut off. Minako opened the door slightly, peering out amidst clouds of steam and a sheaf of soaked golden hair. Spotting Rei on the bed still, she lifted her eyebrows and asked, "My bag…?" Her voice was steadier now, stronger.

"Mostly full of crap," Rei sighed. She tossed over a pair of panties and held up the _manga _in her other hand_. _"Seriously? You're into this?"

Minako caught the panties, dropped them to step into them, and rolled her eyes. "Believe it or not, the dialogue's really touching," she insisted as she rolled the undergarments up her legs. "Or did you fail to notice because you were too busy looking at the giant—"

"You didn't bring any real clothes," the miko cut in, mentally resolving to have another look at the _manga _later, preferably when Minako wasn't watching. She tipped her chin toward the chair next to the bathroom door. A stack of pale pajamas rested there. "Those are for you," she hedged. "They're—they're a little, uh, cutesy."

Minako's hand quested through the gap in the door to retrieve the nightwear. "Thank you, Rei-chan," she murmured. Drawing the bundle to her toweled chest, she defended, "I left in a hurry."

"And because of that," Rei said, providing her friend a reassuring smile, "you get to flounce around in cupcake-print pants. Consider it your lucky day."

The blonde shot her a grateful grin in turn. "I'm quite fortunate," she agreed solemnly. She drew back into the bathroom to finish dressing.

Rei snapped open the first-aid kit in the meantime. She took out a pair of tweezers: the bottle of peroxide too, just in case. She studied the latter wryly and called to Minako, "How's your cheek?"

"My what?" came the muffled query, followed by a heavy thud and a yelp. "Damnit! Rei-chan! Why is your towel rack so pointy?"

"Your _cheek_. The one you cut open on my steps three days ago," Rei volleyed back. She made a point, puns aside, not to answer the other question.

Minako opened the door and flounced into view. Tossing her hair over her shoulder—it made a wet _smuck! _against Rei's desk lamp—she struck a pose, wiggled her eyebrows too. "That was just a scratch," she reminded Rei. "How do I look?"

Rei studied the line of smiling ice cream cones and other various desserts marching up the fabric of Minako's calves. "Cutesy," she managed around a smirk.

Minako made a face. "Uh-huh. Operative word for _hideous_. Why did you _buy _these? They're a fashion atrocity."

"I," Rei denied, hooking her fingers into quotations, "committed no such atrocity, as you call it." She dropped her hands. "Blame Usagi. She gave them to me for my birthday last year. Do they fit okay?"

Tugging at the waistband of the pants, Minako admitted, "They're a little tight in places. And short." She gestured to her ankles, which were indeed vulnerably visible beneath grinning cupcaked cuffs. "They're fine, though," she told Rei. "I appreciate it."

"Sure." Rei smiled, then pointed to the floor between her feet with the tweezers. "Come sit?"

"What are you going to do with those?" Minako asked. She took the suggestion and folded herself down to lean shamelessly back into Rei's knees.

"There's probably still glass in your hair. Here, give me that towel—you're soaking me." Rei took the proffered stretch of fabric and positioned it over her lap. Tucking her hand beneath Minako's chin, she tipped the other girl's head onto the makeshift pad and continued, "I'm going to look through it. Try to get it out, you know." Picking up the comb she intended to use from the bedside table, she inquired, businesslike, "Does your head sting anywhere? Did you feel any cuts when you were rinsing it?"

"No." Minako looked at Rei through the wet smear of her bangs. "Did—uhm. Earlier. I didn't cut you, did I? When I—"

_Lost it? Went to pieces? Turned inside out and took off my mask and showed you what really happens inside this head of mine? _Minako's eyes asked these questions and more.

Rei answered them all in a single headshake. "Nothing broke the skin," she allowed. "I want to keep it that way, too. For both of us."

What Rei really meant was, _You washed away more than just glass in the shower. Let me mop up the rest. Let me put you back together._

Tweaking Minako's ear with the tweezers, she requested, "Help me get your massive hair onto this towel, okay? All of it."

Minako smiled again, small this time, and obliged. Rei dug the comb into the metallic mass and ran it carefully from scalp to spine, flossing free bits that shimmered suspiciously. She made the task wordless, and Minako contributed nothing to the quiet at first but the sound of another person breathing.

"Aren't you going to ask what happened?" she ventured at last.

Rei paused. Flicking a bead-sized pebble of crystal into the wastebasket with the tweezers, she responded, "I won't ask. But I'll listen if you want to talk about it."

The unspoken _if you __**need **__to talk about it _drifted between them.

Minako fell silent again. The comb's teeth made low _shh _sounds in sopping tresses and Rei chewed the inside of her cheek, contemplative. The shrine creaked around the pair as night moved in, made itself comfortable. Shadows in the room slid out their swords. The shower's faucet dripped once, twice, and Minako sat up a little.

"They were fighting," she presented. Her voice sounded too loud and she dropped it, folding her arms over the pillars of her knees. "I came home today—from the gym. I spent all afternoon practicing my low spike because I could tell it was getting soft. I wasn't holding my elbows right. They weren't stiff enough—I kept letting them unhinge too early and my arc was all wobbly for it, and…"

She stopped. Rei felt her jaw clench.

"I can usually tell, you know," Minako said. "I have a sense about it. Like the doorknob tingles before I touch it, or there's something about the way the curtain looks in the front window, and I don't even have to go inside to know it's bad." She shrugged. Rei only just avoided jabbing the nape of her neck with the tweezers. "I missed it this time, I guess."

The seams of the borrowed pajama top creaked as Minako shifted. Rei found a final piece of glass behind her ear. Putting the tweezers aside, she picked it up with her bare fingertips, studied it—threw it away. After disposing of the comb too, she folded the towel over Minako's hair and began to squeegee it dry.

"I left my gym bag in the hall," Minako went on matter-of-factly. "The strap slid off my wrist and I heard her yell at him. He shouted back." She shrugged again, and this time her shoulders trembled. She muffled an angry, thready half-sob into her elbow, swallowed hard: her hair squeaked in the clasp of the towel. Rei felt an overbearing urge to embrace the blonde. Before she could decide whether it was the best idea, though, Minako muttered, "Their fights used to be about actual things—I used to listen too, and I took sides. In my head, I mean. Now it just sounds like static, Rei-chan, and I don't care anymore, and I just wish they'd stop—"

She broke off: not to cry, but to think about something. Rei wondered again if she should hug Minako. The other girl solved this dilemma by wrapping both arms about one of Rei's legs. Tucking her cheek to the inner hinge of the miko's knee, she closed her eyes.

"They've got some nerve," she opined. She tipped her head back a bit farther and there were specks of moisture in her lashes, Rei saw, tiny translucent droplets. From the shower? Tears? Rei couldn't tell.

The miko contributed, "What do you mean?"

"I mean… I mean, what right do they have to fight about nothing when I've spent the past four years," Minako hissed, "fighting for _everything_?"

She sawed her lip, her expression pained—painful too, for Rei to watch.

"How many times have we died now?" Minako wondered aloud. "Two times? Three? Tied up and torn apart and impaled and blown open and… and I walked into the kitchen, hoping they were watching a TV show or something. Maybe getting excited about it—making all that noise for a different reason, a _good _reason. I stepped to the edge of the counter and she threw the gravy boat. Not _at _me. Uh-uh," she clarified. She waggled a finger. "At _him_."

Minako's hair was as dry as it was going to get using just a towel. Tossing said towel the way of the bathroom, Rei set about brushing the other girl's golden mop free of snags and tangles. Horror made her fingers stiff.

"I saw it coming. I saw it coming for, I don't know, _centuries_. Her arm cocking forward, and the boat leaving her fingers—stupid gravy dripping all over the floor the whole time." Minako's mouth quirked in a hard, bitter smile. "I could have dodged it. Really. I've evaded enemy attacks going ten times faster and I've managed to miss rogue balls on the court too, but I just stared at it and I thought over and over, _My own mother would not hit me with a glass bowl full of hot gravy_, and I was still thinking that when it smashed into me."

Her arms tightened around Rei's leg. "Minako-chan," the miko started, but the blonde dug her nails into Rei's pantsleeve and opened her eyes. They were ferocious: they were bereft, brilliant wells of sky-screaming agony. Rei's words of reassurance cut themselves quiet.

"She shrieked at him, and he came around me," Minako said, "and they got into each other's faces and she started grabbing for something else to throw, and neither of them saw me. _Neither of them saw me standing there_, Rei-chan, or if they _did _see me neither of them cared enough to do anything about it, and it's never going to be enough, is it?"

Rei stared at her friend, and Minako asked again, desperate, "Is it?" Her chest hitched. Laughing sundaes and sundry confections bounced beneath the tight pajama collar. "Dying in the snow or sacrificing my dreams, or hitting the winning spike, or signing the star contract or getting an A on a math test, or even saving the world—none of it, _none of it_… It's _never_ going to be enough for them, is it, Rei-chan?"

Rei shook the other girl free. Minako made a sound of pure protest and hurt, and Rei muffled it by sliding down from the edge of her mattress to the floor, where she rolled onto her knees and wrapped her arms around the blonde soldier. She squeezed: hard. Minako gasped, wriggled, and Rei squeezed harder. Holding Minako was like trying to hold sunlight: embarrassing and next to impossible. The miko gave it her best shot anyway.

"What isn't enough for the ungrateful leaves plenty for those who are truly appreciative," Rei permitted finally.

On the desk nearby, the clock ticked.

In her arms, Minako shivered, clung to Rei, and began to laugh.

It was real laughter, bright and blinding—it was loud, it was buoyant. The sound echoed through the chambers of the empty shrine. Minako thrust her face into Rei's throat, sucking in great gulps of air between helpless giggles. Her hands fisted in the miko's pajama top: her nails skittered down the dark-haired girl's spine. She kneed Rei in the kidney. Rei huffed but, because she was feeling charitable, decided not to say anything about it.

"You sound like a _fortune cookie_," Minako wheezed, delighted. "A bad one! A really, _really _bad one."

Rei made a great show of attempting to shove Minako away. She put little to no strength in her pushes, however. "Well," she sniffed, "if you're going to be _elitist_—"

"No, no," Minako denied. She grinned into Rei's collarbone. "Bad fortune cookies are the best." She tightened her grip on the miko until Rei was nearly certain she felt a rib snap. "They give," continued the blonde, "the stupidest and most sincere not-quite advice I've ever heard."

Loosening one arm, Rei lifted it and cupped Minako's citrine head in the palm of a coarse, careful hand. She pressed Minako as near as the other girl could come—tucked her chin protectively down into the damp locks. In the embrace there remained scant space for words, and in the interest of putting as little between them as possible, Rei said nothing.

They clutched one another a while: until Rei's knees crawled with needles and the wet, cold flag of Minako's hair prickled unpleasantly through both their sets of sleepwear. Neither wanted to let the other go, and eventually it was only the thunderous growling rumble of Minako's stomach that forced them apart.

"Sorry," the blonde apologized. She massaged her belly ruefully. "I guess it goes without saying that I didn't stick around for dinner, huh?"

"That," Rei agreed, "sounded and felt like an earthquake." She eased aside and stretched out her legs. Her knees popped like pistons. Her toes crackled. "I have rice," she offered gingerly. "And vegetables—radish, mostly. Some potatoes. I was going to make soup too. I didn't put out much since I'm the only one here, but…"

"Sounds great," Minako supplied. She clapped both hands over the taut drum of her middle and put on a pitiful face. "Feed me, Rei-chan," she begged. She hesitated. She tried out, the most meager of self-teases, "No gravy?"

Rei climbed to her feet. Pressing the pad of her thumb to the other girl's forehead, she rubbed it and consented, "Not in this house. It's gross anyway." She nudged, "Get comfortable, okay? You know where the spare futon is. If you'll get that arranged, I'll work out dinner."

"My _hero_," sighed the blonde. She embraced Rei's legs.

Stepping primly from the encircling clasp, Rei went to the door, made the moves of a model in its threshold, and asked, "You expected someone _less _than heroic?" She shot her fellow soldier a feigned haughty glance.

Minako shook her head and offered Rei a slow, simple smile. "No," she admitted. "It's why I came here in the first place."

Rei flushed. "Read your _manga_, Minako-chan," she muttered. She made to leave.

"Not too many radishes!" Minako called after her. She tacked on quietly, "Thank you, Rei-chan."

Waving dismissively over her shoulder, Rei stepped outside and closed the door against the cold. The night's new breezes swept to her and sent gooseflesh rippling up her arms.

They did nothing, though, to soothe her burning cheeks.


	2. Chapter 2

**Warning: **Rei/Minako. Implications. Also, beware minor amounts of cursing.

**Commentary: **Second part. Another to go. =) Sorry, I was a bit mean with this one.

This piece references events that occurred in the epilogue of _Bookshelf_. I warn you, if you haven't read that, you might be confused during some parts of this tale.

This story in its entirety is for a certain Kiwi because… because I don't know how to show gratitude elsewise. Thank you. Always. =)

As always, I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it.

* * *

_**CURIOUS QUIVER**_

**PART II**

Rei whisked dinner's instant-mix miso into a filmy brown froth in a bowl hastily scavenged from the cabinets. She poured the finished product into a pot on the stove to warm: rolled up her sleeves and went about searching for the shrine's store of scallions. Her efforts came up fruitless. "Damnit, Yuuichirou," she growled to the quiet kitchen. "If you ate them all again and didn't tell anybody, I swear I'm going to kill you…"

She checked on the rice. She spooned the radishes from their wax-sealed jar—set about making tea too. As she sifted the leaves and toed open the pantry door to get at the potatoes, she caught herself humming. It was a habit she usually only indulged in when she was either nervous or content about something.

The low notes of the hum ebbed, stopped. Rei herself paused. Bracing her wrists on the countertop, she closed her eyes. She rocked back on her heels—forward again onto the balls of her feet. The floorboards beneath them creaked a bit. Her hair, heavy, swayed in a faint curl at the small of her back.

"This is the first time," she told no one in particular, "I've made dinner for a suitor."

"Be fair," husked a voice nearby her ear. "You're still _making_ dinner."

Arms encircled her waist. A delicate chin found the shelf of her shoulder, perched there. Brow twitching, Rei looked sideways at Minako's grinning profile and muttered, "I'll starve you. Just watch me."

"A _suitor_," Minako cooed. "Really? I've been called a lot of things in my life, but that—yeah. That's pretty new." She dropped her face into the fabric of Rei's pajama top. Rei felt her mouthing the word. "I like it," she decided firmly.

"Excellent. I aim to please. I also," Rei provided, staunch, "aim to stir that soup before it scalds. Care to let me go?" The miko sincerely doubted the burner beneath that soup was half as hot as her face.

Minako's grin widened. She nevertheless took pity on Rei and, unhooking her arms, flounced aside. She seized the soup pot's handle and swirled the silty liquid around—held her hand out next, fingers splayed. "Spoon," she requested.

Rei gave the blonde a skeptical look. "You're going to help me cook," she said. It was part question—mostly disbelief.

"I," Minako sighed, and fluttered her lashes, "am going to help you cook."

Shrugging, Rei passed over the demanded item and the threat, "If you burn down this shrine, I promise I'll kill you."

Minako dipped the wooden ladle into the soup. She milled the mix into a charybdis, talent and precise timing lurking in the well of her wrist. "Such faith," she pouted. "Such _esteem _you hold for me."

Rei found the potatoes. She pawed through the selection, found two smaller ones she liked, and set about peeling them over the cutting board. "You don't seem like you spend much time in the kitchen," she replied.

"Well, no," Minako agreed. "It's not my favorite thing. I'll leave that to Mako-chan, you know? She enjoys it _and _she's good at it. Me, I'm just a fair hand at—hey." She peered at the pot's contents. "Got any scallions?"

Rei flushed. "I think they've all been eaten," she admitted. "I couldn't find them. What, uhm—what were you saying?"

"Probably better without them anyway," Minako confessed. "Sometimes this instant stuff is just too salty and they melt into these little green globs and—and it's gross," she finished. She flicked her eyes to Rei, beaming. "And I was _saying_ that I'm a fair hand at not," she assured her friend gently, "ruining soup." Reaching out with her free hand, she pinched Rei's cheek. "Don't worry. Your shrine is safe from me."

"'A'oowous," Rei permitted dryly. "'Et '_o_, 'Eenako-'aan."

Minako relinquished her grip on the other girl's face. She checked the soup again. Letting the spoon fall to the side of the pot, she pronounced it, "Stirred." Her eyes darted along the countertop. She noted and took hold of the second potato near Rei's cutting board. Snitching a knife from the dish-drainer, she copied the miko, rolled up her sleeves—the blade in her hand winked proudly—and set about peeling the rough-skinned vegetable.

Rei, mapping her progress sidelong, suggested, "Don't cut yourself."

Her fellow soldier smiled. "Didn't plan on it."

They worked silently for a while: peeling, slicing, chopping. Minako's bits of potato were larger, lumpier than Rei's neat little cubes. All the segments nevertheless fell together into a new pot on the stove. Minako added a spoonful of water, butter: Rei, the tiniest pinch of sugar. At the blonde's arched eyebrow, the shrinemaiden confessed, "Grandpa does it—habit, I guess," and put the lid on the pot. She clicked up the burner too. "Ten minutes," she said. "Maybe fifteen."

"Soup and rice in the meantime," Minako decided firmly. "Go sit. You cooked. So I'll serve."

Rei didn't budge. Settling her elbow on the countertop, she eased her weight onto the pivotal joint and said, "You don't know where anything is in here."

"An excuse to rifle _through_ something!" Minako exclaimed. "Oh, dear me! Whatever shall I do with such an opportunity?" She wiggled her fingers at Rei. They were still a bit pruny from the shower, Rei saw, their cuticles white and soft.

The miko exhaled loudly through her nose and pursed her lips—though only to hide a smile. She thought Minako noticed it anyway: the smile, of course. She still refused to move.

"Go _on_," Minako groaned at her. "Stop trying to be such an awesome host. Geesh, Rei-chan—I can find a few crummy bowls. Sit _down _already."

Rei deliberated a smoldering half-second. She then took two quick strides to the low table and sat as ordered. She turned on the cushion in time to see Minako thrust her arms into the cabinets, burying them up to the elbows. Porcelain clinked. A kiln-fired mug passed down through Rei's mother's side of the family for generations trembled upon, wiggled along, fell from its hook. Minako caught it expertly, effortlessly, and replaced it.

Thirty seconds later found Minako putting a bowl of rice and accompanying soup on the table before Rei's steepled fingers. She left and returned again shortly, holding her own first course. Rei passed over a pair of chopsticks and, with a small click, said, "It looks good."

"Definitely," Minako agreed. She stabbed the chopsticks into the rice and lobbed a half-moon wedge of it into her mouth. She chewed resolutely, watching Rei through golden lashes. A single white grain stuck to her cheek and bounced up and down with every rollercoastering hitch of her jaw.

She swallowed.

She started to say something and Rei, not quite ready to talk yet, dropped her eyes to her soup. She cupped her hands around the bowl, felt its heat in her fingers: lifted it, sipped. Around the rim of the bowl she saw Minako watching her. Challenging, Rei watched her back.

"So," Minako said. She put down her chopsticks. Rei settled the miso, half-empty now, back on the table's surface.

"So," Rei echoed.

"About this whole lesbian fling we're going to have," Minako started.

Rei's face fell into her palm.

Minako graciously allowed her to recover. "Well," the blonde resumed, "we have to start somewhere. I propose your bed. I tried it out before I came down here, see, and it might not be as big as the futon I rolled out for myself, but it's _much _softer—"

"I," Rei put in, lifting her face and peering out at Minako through her fingers, "am not a lesbian."

Minako flapped a hand at her. "I'm not either," she relayed, as easily as one might say _I like strawberries _or _I'm allergic to beestings_. "But—"

"_But_," Rei pointed out. "But. Yes. That's good, Minako-chan. That's a word you should consider more often. _But_." She held up a finger. "In this case, here, right now, let's study it: _but there are breasts involved_."

Her friend provided a consternated blink and an, "Ew."

"Your breasts," Rei reinforced, sensing victory. What she wanted—no, _needed_ to say next was clear, humiliating evidence of the fact that she had given this matter serious thought. She hesitated because of it. Finally she spat out, "Y… your breasts. And _my_ breasts."

Minako stilled. She leveled her gaze at Rei's chest. She all but stared at it in a sweeping, measured kind of quiet, her expression unreadable.

The temperature in Rei's cheeks nudged toward nuclear. Still, she puffed out her ribs a bit—the curves in question gave a plentiful shiver—and asked, "Repulsed by the thought, Minako-chan?"

The blonde looked up again. Her eyes narrowed. Because she had an excellent serve and knew when to use it, Minako volleyed back, "Are you?"

Rei threw up her hands. She wasn't usually given to such exaggerated displays of frustration—she left that to Usagi—but now she made an exception. "I asked you _first_."

"And I answered a question with a question," Minako retaliated. Cheerful and charitable to boot, she offered, "You're more than welcome to do the same. No—really. I've got all night, and we can do this. Skirt the issue, I mean. Bullshit the business. They say that sometimes, you know, and it means—"

"Shut up," Rei interrupted, exasperated. "Just—just shut up. Please."

Minako did. Lifting her chopsticks again, she snapped them playfully at Rei, popped another chunk of rice between her lips, and muttered around the mouthful, "Honestly. A lesbian. Pfft." Her cheeks puffed, chipmunk-esque and strewn with tiny white grains now. Rei counted them.

_Six_, she remarked in the privacy of her own head. She darted out a bronzed hand across the tabletop. She found her own chopsticks. She broke them apart and jabbed a single piece toward Minako, nearly too fast to track. With the blunt wooden staff she flicked away one of the more prominent particles. It landed in Minako's soup.

They both watched it bob and float.

"Five," Rei said aloud. Her voice sounded thin, tired. "You have five little bits of rice on your face now." She heaved a silent, suffering—oh, she really _was_ suffering—sigh. She finished, "No."

Minako pawed at herself. "No?" she reiterated. "There's more than five?"

"No," Rei seethed. "I—I guess. God." She dropped the chopsticks. They clattered—they barked bamboo laughter over the table's surface. The miko ground her face into the heel of her hand. "No," she bit off, "I am not repulsed by the thought. Of, of…" She struggled. Heat and shame and something like a sneer snarled in her throat. She managed, "…of your breasts."

The blonde across from her considered this for all of five seconds.

"How about my breasts and _yours_?" Minako wheedled.

Rei calmly lowered her fingers, furled them over one sliver of her chopsticks. "I will stab you, Minako-chan. In the _neck_." She brandished the small spear for emphasis.

Faced with such peril, Minako smiled, swilled down her soup in one great gulp, and blew Rei a kiss.

"Maybe the eye instead," Rei revisited. The chopstick creaked as her hand tightened around it. "Whichever hurts more. What do you think?"

"Eye, definitely." Minako affixed Rei with both of those brilliant blue orbs. They tightened at the corners—they blazed. Her mouth crooked too. Rubbing her thumb over her lips, she inquired, "So you're _sure _you're not a lesbian, Rei-chan?"

"Sure _you're _not a lesbian, Minako-chan?" Rei's left eyebrow spasmed. She massaged it into stillness once more. Blood pounded in her ears, a symphony of anger and—was that fear's stippling snaredrum?

_Ratta-tat-tat_, Rei mused miserably.

"Well, wouldja look at that. You answered a question with a question! Hah!" Minako clapped her hands together gleefully. She confessed, "I'm so proud of you."

Chest an abrupt knot of tension, the miko knocked her fists gently against the table—she wanted to pound it but it was old and, like the mug Minako had dropped earlier, an heirloom. She begged, "Would you stop it?"

"Stop what?" Minako asked, blithe.

Rei straightened. On the stove the kettle began to burble; the hewn edge of the chopstick bit into the miko's palm with its tiny wooden teeth. She looked at Minako's grinningly smug stupid unrepentant face and said simply, "Stop acting like this is a game."

She exhaled. Her shoulders slumped as the breath left her. She concluded, "Because it isn't."

She dropped her eyes.

Minako shifted. Rei heard pajamas rustle. Scooting along the edge of the table toward her friend, the bright-haired soldier plucked free the chopstick from Rei's grasp, tossed it over her shoulder, and folded the fingers of both hands pointedly in a lattice across Rei's knee. She jiggled them: the fingers, the knee too. She said, "Sorry." She sounded like she meant it.

Rei regarded Minako's reflection in her miso. She provided no response.

As usual, Minako could be counted on to carry the conversation. "You circled Thursday on your calendar," she informed Rei as though the other girl didn't already know. "Our date."

"Yes," Rei allowed.

Minako prodded, "Why? Why'd you do that if you're not…?" She scowled—shook her head. Her hands tightened in the fabric of Rei's pants. "Did you circle it because you think its doomsday or something? Is that it?"

"Yes," the shrinemaiden muttered, deadpan. "I marked an apocalyptic date night on my calendar. I'm really just that _festive_."

Minako's scowl smoothed into a soft, puzzled frown. She waited.

Quiet now across the kitchen: the kettle ticking, the burner sounding its small electric hum beneath the potatoes and their pot. Star-specked night filled the window above the sink and Rei fiddled with the hem of her pajama top. She plucked Minako's hands from their clasp—rose, walked to the stove. She made drinks just next to it and thought, _Tea for two._

As she poured steaming water from the kettle into a pair of available cups, she considered her words carefully. She spelled them out piecemeal, slow, "No one else… no one else I care about as much as I do you, Minako-chan, has ever been brave enough to ask me to dinner."

Rei hated the vulnerability in her voice. Her throat itched for it. She swallowed: replaced the kettle on a cool burner, blew vapor and faint foam from the surface of both cups. She carried them to the table, the strings of the tea bags fluttering against her wrists. She took pains to avoid Minako's gaze.

She provided Minako her cup. The blonde murmured gratefully—Rei nodded back. She found her seat cushion again and settled there, and it was only the threat of hot tea spilling over her fingers that kept them from trembling.

"When you asked me," she continued, "it made me feel the way I've always _wanted _to feel when someone special got the guts to ask me out." The fire in her face made the sacred flame at the heart of Hikawa seem like a wet match. She managed hoarsely, "But…"

She faltered.

Kind, Minako supplied, "But there are breasts involved. Yours. Mine. Right?"

"Right," Rei sighed.

They watched one another over their cups, sipping the tea. Minako whimpered at the heat. Rei scalded her lower lip and kept a stoic expression, but cursed a mental blue streak.

"So," Minako hedged. "You want out of the deal. No date. Mmhm?"

"I never said that," snipped Rei waspishly. Her lip throbbed. She put down her cup a little too hastily and the searing liquid within washed over her thumb. She hissed.

"What do you want, then?" Minako pursued.

Rei said, "_Not_ a lesbian fling." She hesitated. She offered, "But I want to know what _you _want. And I especially want to know why."

Across from her, the other soldier scratched her leg and made a show of clicking her teeth over the edge of the teacup. She closed her eyes. She hummed: once, twice, a sotto C.

"I want," she put forward, "to try this."

Her eyes slid open and she pinned Rei in their azure simmer, intent. She smiled. She insisted, "Give me some credit, Rei-chan. I did think about this before I came over here the first time." Rei granted the pop idol a dubious glance—Minako, in turn, made a face. "I didn't think about it for _long_, okay, fine"—the blonde shrugged—"but I don't think about _anything_ for long."

"Of course not," Rei grumbled.

She was ignored. "After thinking about this for approximately ten minutes," Minako persisted, "I realized that I believed it could work." She toasted the air between them with her cup. Said cup was mostly empty now, but a few scalding drops still pattered over the tabletop. Rei smoothed them away with a napkin and Minako contended, "I came over here as fast as I could—skidded straight across an intersection on my ass for you. Could have been killed. _Squished into jelly_, Rei-chan." Sunny eyebrows waggled demonstratively. "But I had to do it fast before I lost my nerve, and if that meant impromptu ice-ass-skating, well, go big or go home—"

"You were nervous?" Rei interrupted.

Minako fell quiet. Her jubilant face smoothed, and she studied Rei and the miko studied her back, a meeting of noon and night in the two pairs of eyes that wandered across the table in the centuries-old Hikawa kitchen.

"Nervous?" It echoed, that word. "No. Nervous… nervous is when your stomach's all tight and you know you can do something, but there's a risk of doing it wrong, and it's that risk that keeps your heart pounding and your body shivering, and ice drips down your spine and your feet itch, and..." Minako paused, and Rei knew she was thinking about singing. "No," the blonde repeated. "I wasn't nervous."

"What were you, then, that you felt motivated to toss your butt into traffic for me?" Rei attached, pained, "_Literally_."

The other girl finished her tea in a gulp. She blew out a jasmine-scented breath next and professed, "Afraid. I was afraid."

Rei, who was used to staring into enigmatic flames of all vibrancies, watched Minako's hair shift in the room's small light and waited for clarity from the soldier beneath it.

"You know how, sometimes, you dream"—Minako spoke slowly, rolling the empty cup between her flattened palms—"and then you wake up and you remember that dream, and you think, _Oh, right, that's how it's supposed to be_, and—you just." Her cheek twitched. "You just _know_, in that small space after dreaming and before waking, what you have to do to make things perfect. Right?"

Before the flushed, shock-silent miko could dredge up a response, Minako went on, "To be fair, I wasn't dreaming. I was perfectly awake. But I was supposed to be doing my homework and instead I started thinking about Ami-chan and Mako-chan, and I was kind of twiddling my pencil around like this"—she demonstrated with a chopstick—"and I realized, while I was trying to decide who's going to own who in _that _relationship, what happiness is and what it takes to get there."

The leader of the moon monarch's inner guard held up a single finger. "It's being with the person who understands you best—who hates you sometimes but loves you _all _the time despite it. Who challenges you and gives ground for you too, and knows when to do either one—who _steals your favorite pair of heels like a ninja _but gives them back a week later all polished and pretty and… Rei-chan, your face looks like it's going to melt off."

Minako patted the silent miko's hand sympathetically. Rei, too frozen to protest, let her.

"Anyway," Minako resumed, "there are probably _other_ roads to happiness, sure, but that's the one that occurred to me first. _Bang_!" She said this with enough fervor that Rei jumped. "Right here." The blonde tapped her temple. "Hit me hard. Sure did. And before it could slip away, like dreams and the things they tell you usually do, I grabbed my coat and jumped into my shoes and _cut open my face on your steps_. I was that determined to get here, to get to you, and to tell you."

Minako grinned proudly, and the fading scrape on her cheek wrinkled a bit. The grin softened, though, and she informed Rei, "But I was afraid, because let's face it—I forget things all the time, and I was terrified I'd forget what I thought about you, and me, and about happiness and how to get to it, and that—that would have been terrible."

The stove ticked. The potatoes were nearly finished and their stalwart scent drifted heavily throughout the kitchen.

"Why?" Rei croaked. "Why so terrible?"

Minako looked at the miko thoughtfully. Planting her palms on the tatami, she levered herself around the edge of the table, tucked her side to her friend's, and leaned up to kiss Rei's flaming cheek. With that done, she said, "Well, despite the buts and the breasts and stuff, Rei-chan, you still said yes, didn't you?"

Rei remembered the red circle on her calendar. She found herself both unable and unwilling to disagree.

"So maybe that means," said Minako, curling both her arms about one of Rei's, "your road to happiness is the same as mine, barring the occasional sixteen-car pileup." Their elbows jangled gently. The blonde finished, "Don't you think it would be terrible if we never had the chance to find out?"

Puffs of heat along Rei's neck: Minako's breath. The miko looked down and saw the glimmer of the other soldier's hair beneath the dark canvas of her own, the sky with the stars in it.

Stars—oh, she loved stars.

"I—I have to finish sweeping," she choked out, and sweep she did: from her friend's grasp, from the kitchen, from the shrine proper.

She fled into the courtyard.


End file.
